mastercheffandomcom-20200223-history
Moo-vers and Bakers
Plot *'Team Challenge 5:' In this field Team Challenge, the home cooks were split into two teams of five. The challenge would require them to prep and serve 101 steak dishes to 101 hungry cow-boys and -girls and various country ranchers. The steak dish would require two sides and one sauce. These guests would cast the votes to decide which team had the best performance. With the best two dishes from the last elimination test, Hetal and Katrina were selected as team captains for this challenge. However, this time the two selected the members for the opposing Captain's team, with Hetal getting first pick. Hetal chose Claudia, Tommy, Nick and Derrick for Katrina, forming the Blue Team, while Katrina chose Shelly (who revealed herself as a pescetarian), Olivia, Christopher and Stephen for Hetal, forming the Red Team. For another advantage, Hetal also was allowed to choose which type of steak both teams would be cooking: New York strip steak or Hanger steak. After discussion with her teammates, Hetal opted for the Hanger steak, leaving the New York strip for Katrina's team, much to Katrina's surprise and joy. During preparation, Shelly had concerns with Hetal's more light menu with potato salad and grilled zucchini, believing something rich like BBQ sauce will appeal to the ranchers more. The judges discussed and wondered if the fact Hetal being a vegetarian would hinder her team, but Christina expressed her confidence in her due to her great performance in the Beef Wellington challenge, while also Gordon voiced his belief that Katrina would be a good leader. When Gordon came up to check on the Red team, he chastised them for their strange menu choice, believing the vegetables won't be going so much up the cowboy's alley (with Gordon saying it was like "ladies' lunch") and it would also be time consuming to cook. However, as time started to run out, Hetal decided to stick with the zucchini and added more flavors into it to try to appeal to the guests. On the other hand, the Blue Team was operating smoothly, but Gordon had some reservation over Katrina's unusual choice of sweet potato mash and whiskey sauce, saying they need more heat in the dish. Katrina decided to add cayenne to the potatoes and Claudia suggested changing the sauce to a red pepper sauce. The Red Team continued to struggle with Hetal's poor management over her team, she sent Christopher to help out Stephen in the grill, while the girls are struggling to prep the vegetables. Moreover, Stephen refused Christopher's help and decided to do the grill all by himself and wanted Christopher to go away, rising tension between the two. Over on the Blue team, Derrick and Nick also had issues controlling the grill. As service was about to begin, the Red Team's zucchini were still not cooked, leaving the guests to get an empty plate from them, while the Blue Team was running smoothly on service. However, as service continued, Derrick was starting to get stressed out and panicked, causing some chaos in the Blue team, but Katrina quickly took charge and calmed him down. On the other hand, the Red team was starting to pick up from their earlier hassles, and things were running smooth for them in the second half of service. However, in the end, the Blue team won by a landslide with 50 votes ahead of the Red team, sending the Red team to the pressure test, much to Hetal's devastation. Derrick commended Katrina for leading their team to victory and saying that she was the best captain. As an immediate punishment for the Red team, they must clean down both kitchens. *'Pressure Test 5:' With their crushing defeat, the Red team was sent to the pressure test. Before the pressure test began, the judges announced that one person would be safe from elimination, and this decision was left to the Blue team. The Blue team discussed and decided to save Olivia from the pressure test as they felt she had been a team player in the past team challenges, much to her relief. Therefore, Christopher, Hetal, Shelly and Stephen were put up in a pressure test where they would have to bake a perfect and delicious fruit tart in 90 minutes. Due to her forte being in baking, Hetal was confident going into the pressure test, saying Stephen, being in his first pressure test, might crack under pressure as he wasn't so comfortable with baking as shown in the apple pie challenge. And just as Hetal predicted, Stephen felt agitated throughout the challenge and appeared to panic. As the challenge continued, Christopher discovered his pastry cream was too runny due to him adding lemon juice into it, while Stephen also cracked his pastry when he lifted it up from the baking tray, leaving him visibly upset and defeated. When judging began, Stephen was the first to be judged. Aside from the fact the pastry was cracked, the pastry cream in his tart was loose and Christina said his only choice of blueberries was rather one-dimensional and visually not colorful and appealing as a result, but nonetheless tasted delicious. Shelly's mixed berries fruit tart had little glaze on the fruits (as she ran out of time) and the pastry was also a bit undercooked in a few areas but was good overall. Christopher's fruit tart had a perfect pastry but his pastry cream hadn't set and was really runny but tasted good. Hetal's fruit tart was visually stunning but Christina pointed out it could do with a few extra minutes in the oven to get the golden brown color around the pastry. Her pastry cream was also a little thin as her pastry shrank but the flavors were great. The judges said that this was a tough pressure test as there weren't any major defining mistakes between the four home cooks and none of the fruit tarts were perfect. Hetal and Shelly were the first to be sent to safety, leaving Christopher and Stephen to face elimination. At the end, the judges still appeared to not have met an unanimous decision of who to send home and Gordon asked for another discussion. In the end, Gordon said it was too close to call and sent both Christopher and Stephen to safety, much to their surprises. This was the third time overall in this version of MasterChef where no contestants were sent home. Gordon said this was their hardest decision in the competition yet and said as the Top 10 of this season, the decisions are going to get harder and harder, and asked them to have a good night before the next challenge. Category:Episodes